American doctor in Liberia tests positive for Ebola virus

[Elley Mae]

The mobility, and now the sheer numbers, make the basic work of containing the disease a monumental task. The only way to stop an outbreak is to isolate infected patients, trace all their contacts, isolate the ones who get sick and repeat the process until, finally, there are no more cases.

But how do you do that when there can easily be 500 names on the list of contacts who are supposed to be tracked down and checked for fever every day for 21 days?

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/10/world/africa/tracing-ebolas-breakout-to-an-african-2-year-old.html

 

[jjenny]

This is just a random example but it is what I have heard reported and I don't believe it.

http://www.opecareemblog.com/2014/08/ebola-they-are-not-contagious-until.html?m=1

EBOLA: "THEY ARE NOT CONTAGIOUS Until They Are Acutely Ill"-US State Department On Ebola Alert (Must Read)

• If you are walking around you are not infectious to others.

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/experts-surprised-ebola-infected-doctor-walk-hospital/story?id=24820682
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/.../why-youre-not-going-to-get-ebola-in-the-u-s/

All posts are MOO

If you are walking around you are not infectious-that is clearly false. Mr. Sawyer was not only walking around, he got on the plane and flew to Nigeria.

"Until last week, many Nigerians largely ignored West Africa’s Ebola outbreak: It was several countries away and didn’t seem like an immediate threat. That changed after a Liberian-American named Patrick Sawyer boarded a plane in Liberia while ill with the disease, crossed four countries by air, landed in Lagos, and then collapsed at the airport."

http://time.com/3089072/ebola-outbreak-nigeria-lagos/

 

[nrdsb4]

This is just a random example but it is what I have heard reported and I don't believe it.

http://www.opecareemblog.com/2014/08/ebola-they-are-not-contagious-until.html?m=1

EBOLA: "THEY ARE NOT CONTAGIOUS Until They Are Acutely Ill"-US State Department On Ebola Alert (Must Read)

• If you are walking around you are not infectious to others.

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/experts-surprised-ebola-infected-doctor-walk-hospital/story?id=24820682
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/.../why-youre-not-going-to-get-ebola-in-the-u-s/

All posts are MOO

The State Department notice is at odds with the CDC information, which states that a person is contagious once they begin experiencing symptoms rather than when they are severely ill. I believe this discrepancy is irresponsible.

Emphasis is mine.

gngr-snap, maybe I missed it, but in your abcnews.go link, I didn't see anything in that article which suggested that Dr. Brantley was not contagious because he was able to walk. The point as I interpreted it was that they were surprised he was able to walk under his own power given how long he has been ill, and that by that time, they would have expected him to be deathly ill. The take home for me is that they are cautiously optimistic that he will survive based on those observations.

 

[jjenny]

The State Department notice is at odds with the CDC information, which states that a person is contagious once they begin experiencing symptoms rather than when they are severely ill. I believe this discrepancy is irresponsible.

Emphasis is mine.

gngr-snap, maybe I missed it, but in your abcnews.go link, I didn't see anything in that article which suggested that Dr. Brantley was not contagious because he was able to walk. The point as I interpreted it was that they were surprised he was able to walk under his own power given how long he has been ill, and that by that time, they would have expected him to be deathly ill. The take home for me is that they are cautiously optimistic that he will survive based on those observations.

I agree. It's irresponsible to spread around misinformation. Someone being able to walk doesn't make that someone not infectious.
Obviously that statement is absurd. If Dr. Brantley become non-infectious once he could walk, they wouldn't put the biohazard suit on him and everybody else who was coming in contact with him. And we know that person will remain infectious for while even after they recover from Ebola.

 

[gngr~snap]

The State Department notice is at odds with the CDC information, which states that a person is contagious once they begin experiencing symptoms rather than when they are severely ill. I believe this discrepancy is irresponsible.

Emphasis is mine.

gngr-snap, maybe I missed it, but in your abcnews.go link, I didn't see anything in that article which suggested that Dr. Brantley was not contagious because he was able to walk. The point as I interpreted it was that they were surprised he was able to walk under his own power given how long he has been ill, and that by that time, they would have expected him to be deathly ill. The take home for me is that they are cautiously optimistic that he will survive based on those observations.

I am only referring to when a patient first becomes contagious. Clearly they are contagious before they are so sick they can't walk or make it into public areas.
The virus unlike HIV is in EVERY BODY FLUID. TEARS. URINE SWEAT...
I did read if a man survives the virus can still be found in his semen for a month or longer.
I think there is a good bit of mis information out there.
"A lab worker who contracted Ebola was still shedding the virus in his semen for 61 days after he recovered, according to the World Health Organization."*
"That suggests that Ebola could be sexually transmitted after recovery, Schaffner said."
http://m.livescience.com/47218-ebola-transmission-routes.html

All posts are MOO

 

[gngr~snap]

I guess it's just me, but IMO it isn't hard to see how easily it could be contracted by someone out in public.
Say someone who is feeling crummy goes for medicine and sneezes at the checkout register at the grocery store. On the Credit card machine. I am next in line and there are sneeze particles on the pin buttons.
As I enter my pin it is now on my finger, if I wipe my eye before washing my hands, did I just get Ebola? What about the people after me? It makes my skin crawl... just thinking about it. It just doesn't seem like it's that hard to get exposed becuase the virus can live on surfaces a pretty long time.


"And as for the chance that an*object could spread the disease, someone would need to touch the soiled object, pick up a live virion, and then touch his or her eye or have virus particles sneak through an open cut in the skin or a mucous membrane, to actually get Ebola, he said."
http://m.livescience.com/47218-ebola
-transmission-routes.html

All posts are MOO

 

[nrdsb4]

This research was published in one of the most prestigious journals, so it sure is not MOO.

"When news broke that the Ebola virus had resurfaced in Uganda, investigators in Canada were making headlines of their own with research indicating the deadly virus may spread between species, through the air."


http://healthmap.org/site/diseasedaily/article/pigs-monkeys-ebola-goes-airborne-112112

The same doctor who did that study linked above, which was published in 2012, has continued his research, and his findings are interesting:

http://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/study-confirms-ebola-not-transmitted-through-air

So does this mean that only certain strains of Ebolavirus can be transmitted through the air? Or is it perhaps that pigs have a specialized ability to make Ebola airborne? Was the virus transmitted via an unknown source of cross-contamination? Those questions could very well be settled with further research, but until then, one thing is for certain: There is absolutely no evidence that primates can transmit Ebola to one another through the air. The only evidence of primate-to-primate transmission is from direct bodily contact.

BBM

 

[danzn16]

I guess it's just me, but IMO it isn't hard to see how easily it could be contracted by someone out in public.
Say someone who is feeling crummy goes for medicine and sneezes at the checkout register at the grocery store. On the Credit card machine. I am next in line and there are sneeze particles on the pin buttons.
As I enter my pin it is now on my finger, if I wipe my eye before washing my hands, did I just get Ebola? What about the people after me? It makes my skin crawl... just thinking about it. It just doesn't seem like it's that hard to get exposed becuase the virus can live on surfaces a pretty long time.


"And as for the chance that an*object could spread the disease, someone would need to touch the soiled object, pick up a live virion, and then touch his or her eye or have virus particles sneak through an open cut in the skin or a mucous membrane, to actually get Ebola, he said."
http://m.livescience.com/47218-ebola
-transmission-routes.html

All posts are MOO

Yes, this is why health care providers wear suits. Why they are trying to downplay the severity of this virus is beyond me.

 

[HMSHood]

Philadelphia Mom Mourns 2 Kids Killed by Ebola Virus
http://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/news...oses-2-Children-to-Ebola-Virus-270633421.html

Heartbroken and inconsolable, a Philadelphia woman is searching for answers after the deadly Ebola virus took the lives of two of her children in the span of just a few weeks.

“I can’t stand it,” said Georgia Nah of Southwest Philly. “I can’t sleep. Every day I think about them.”

Very sad. :tears:

 

[HMSHood]

Was a two-year-old boy from a tiny village in Guinea the 'patient zero' of the Ebola outbreak?
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...llage-Guinea-patient-zero-Ebola-outbreak.html

A two-year-old boy from a remote village in Guinea was 'patient zero' in the deadliest-yet Ebola outbreak, epidemiologists believe.

The boy from the village of Meliandou, Guéckédou province, suffered with fever, black stools and vomiting for just four days until he died on December 6.

Seven days later, his mother died too, followed by his three-year-old sister, who fell sick on Christmas Day and was dead before she could see the New Year.

Patient zero of this Ebola epidemic is a 2 year old boy. I suspect he caught it from some animal, probably bats.

 

[SophieRose]

He and the Spanish nun that were evacuated wanted two African nuns with ebola also to go to Spain. They were refused and one has already died from ebola.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news...ish-pries/?utm_source=RSS_Feed&utm_medium=RSS

The 75-year-old Spanish priest who became the first patient evacuated to Europe with the deadly Ebola virus now will become the first European to be treated with the experimental drug ZMapp.

 

[jjenny]

Yes, this is why health care providers wear suits. Why they are trying to downplay the severity of this virus is beyond me.

Exactly. Even if it's not transmitted through the air, does it make it not dangerous? It's transmitted through bodily fluids, and it is in all bodily fluids (unlike HIV). It takes a very small amount to be infected.

 

[Muffet]

For reference, here are two lab-based, controlled studies on aerosolized Ebola Zaire on monkeys.

Bottom line: it killed them. It hasn't been shown in humans, since we can't intentionally infect humans, and it's not always possible to tell exactly what route infected a human, and it is still not easily "airborne, " like some other diseases.

Still, so many people online are insisting it can't be transmitted by aerosols or via the respiratory tract, because the typically cited Canadian experiment was messy, and another transmission was from the Reston variant, I thought you all might want to have these studies handy.

(1995) Lethal experimental infections of rhesus monkeys by aerosolized Ebola virus.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7547435?dopt=Abstract

(2012) Pathology of experimental aerosol Zaire ebolavirus infection in rhesus macaques.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23262834
This study provides unprecedented insight into pathogenesis of human aerosol Zaire ebolavirus infection...

 

[Oddsocks]

The World Health Organisation lists it as killing about 90 per cent of those infected but Senanayake and Marsh believe the true figure is nearer 60 per cent which is still incredibly high.

To put it into context, Senanayake says meningococcal has a mortality rate of 5 to 10 per cent and the Spanish flu which killed 100 million in 1918 had a rate of 2.5 per cent.

http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/...ce-for-a-vaccine/story-fnihslxi-1227020609927

 

[nrdsb4]

Personally, I think this disease is very scary. But it is important that one understand that transmission by droplet is NOT the same as airborne transmission. It's a very significant distinction, and one I am appreciating very much right now, because of the virulence. If this were airborne, even I would be having waves of panic.

IMO, the two Atlanta patients are irrelevant to the big picture. We have open borders, and it's been shown that contagious individuals are capable of masking their symptoms long enough to board airplanes. They are met in ERs by triage nurse who are not wearing Hazmat. We need to expend our energies on finding a cure or vaccine and on preparing our infrastructure for handling more than one or two patients in the healthcare setting.

 

[ohiogirl]

SMH at Anne Coulter. I will make one comment on the link where she questions

Ann, I would gander to think that he is very glad that his case has brought more world attention to this world plight.

Anyhow, I came across these letters on the internet of another Doctor treating patients... Warning: The letters are raw and explain so much about conditions and transmission, yet reading them.. they will make you bawl like a baby :moo: so if you're not in the mood for a good cry...I recommend you scroll by and not read them
http://news.unchealthcare.org/news/2014/june/dispatch-from-guinea-containing-ebola

Thanks for this link. I'm glad I read it. This doctor is a true hero. The Ann Coulter's in this world with their negativity, are just a waste of space, imo.

 

[Yoda]

"Three missionaries working to fight the deadly Ebola outbreak in West Africa returned to Charlotte on Sunday night.The group is being kept in a group of RV's at SIM's 100-acre campus in south Charlotte. They arrived on a private flight into Charlotte Douglas International Airport at 10:16 p.m., according to SIM.
While they are being quarantined, SIM missionaries stresses the group is not showing any signs of Ebola.
Chopper 9 Skyzoom flew over the area the missionaries will call home until each spends 21 days in quarantine, the longest duration of incubation for the deadly virus."

http://www.wsoctv.com/news/news/local/charlotte-bound-missionaries-west-africa-quarantin/ngytM/

 

[SophieRose]

http://www.bizjournals.com/sanfranc...er-sutter-dignity-health-stanford.html?page=2

A doctor friend of Kelly's is hospitalized with Ebola in Freetown, the capital of Sierra Leone. The friend was infected while caring for patients in an outpatient clinic that didn't have a supply of protective gear, because that gear was in short supply and was reserved for use in isolation wards, Kelly said. Now, his friend is impossible to reach. Cell phones can't be used in isolation wards, Kelly notes, so his calls go straight to voice mail.

 

[Herding Cats]

It seems things are getting really bad...the WHO has authorized the use of "unapproved" drugs to treat ebola patients. Which means that drugs which are in the trial stage, or just being developed, with no real understanding of side effects or downsides...will be used. There is a codicil, however, and that is, according to the WHO, "only those Drs who fit the requirements". I have no idea what that means.

I *think*, and this is MOO, that what this move means is that things like ZMapp*, and other drugs which have been developed but not tested, will now be used on ebola patients, both in the western world as well as where the primary outbreak is.

An interesting issue is also occurring - some of the states where ebola is very present have stated that they don't understand why it's only "Europeans and americans" are the ones to get the drugs, when they are the ones most affected by the epidemic.

*Zmapp's maker states that they are currently out of the med; and they are not sure how Br. Parajes got a dose. Br. Parajes has since passed away.

No good news...and I'm sorry, but I don't have a link for the WHO's latest declaration. It was reported on Fox, though.

Best-
Herding Cats

 

[Seph]

It's a really complicated question of who gets these drugs because of the ethical implications. From this article on CNN, the World Health Organization is going to bring together an ethics commission to decide who they will recommend should get the drug, but they won't be brokering the drug.

http://www.cnn.com/2014/08/12/health/ebola-outbreak/

It's MOO that this is super complicated. If they try the drugs on non-physician Africans, there are the ethical implications that these drugs are being tested on folks who may not be able to give as informed consent as someone who is educated in the medical field. We don't know if these drugs will work or the potential side effects. There really isn't much proof Zmapp works all that well since the disease has a 40% survival rate, and there haven't been enough human uses of the drug to say that the success is the same as or better than the survival rate.